Using Census Population Data (Shallow Thoughts)

Using Census Population Data

A couple of us in the local League of Women Voters chapter have been talking about how our county's school board is elected. There are five school districts, to go with the five elementary schools ... but when it comes time to vote for the school board, the voting districts aren't the same as the school districts. For example, a parent whose kid goes to Barranca might be voting for the school board rep from the Aspen district. This confuses pretty much everybody.

Apparently the reason it's set up this way is that the voting districts need to have roughly equal population, which the actual school districts don't. That made us curious about how the populations of the actual school districts compared. But it turns out if you ask that question, no one has those numbers, or at least, we couldn't find anyone who would release them.

"No problem!" I chirped. "I can get population data from the Census website, and combine that with the GIS for the school districts!"

Little did I know, when I promised that, what a soul-sucking pit of despair the Census website is, and how difficult it is to get data out of it.

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